C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

…That is the Question      With all respect to Hamlet, and his creator Shakespeare, the question on the minds of most lifters and bodybuilders isn’t whether or not life is preferable to death (or vice versa) but whether or not we should spend our training lives reaching momentary muscular failure.  Or not.      When I first started writing for IronMan magazine over 30 years ago, a lot of their more popular writers—such as Steve Holman, Richard A. Winnett, and Clarence Bass, not to mention Mike Mentzer—were decidedly in the training-to-failure camp, albeit with limited sets to mitigate that supposed entity known as “overtraining.”  But you also had writers that came out around that time, such as Charles Poliquin, who recommended much more voluminous workouts programs but still believed in taking the majority of sets to muscular failure.  And on the flip side of that , within a few years you had other writers that came t...

  Insights from Napoleon Hill for Building Muscle, Gaining Strength, or Getting in the Best Shape of Your Life       “I don’t know why it is that when a man decides what he wants, the whole universe seems to come to his aid to see that he gets it.” ~Napoleon Hill Napoleon Hill, the inspiration for this post.      Whatever you may think of the man personally—his Wikipedia page, for instance is, let’s just say, less than flattering—Napoleon Hill had some great insights.  But of all his “lessons” that should be learned, one of them is more important than any other.  And based on the title of this post, I am, of course, talking about having a Definite Chief Aim .      In his book “Secrets of Self-Mastery,” popular New Thought author Mitch Horowitz has this to say about the importance of this one thing:  “I often say that if you take only one message from Hill and the larger body of work that deve...

 On Solitude and the Company of Others "Associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty.  But learn to be happy alone." ~William James Napoleon Hill, the early 20th century motivational speaker and writer who inspired the title of this post. The other day, while having a conversation with my oldest son on the importance of having a good workout partner (or not), I started to think about the importance of who—and even what—we surround ourselves with.  Not counting just life in general, this may be more important than you realize when it comes to building muscle and strength. The title of this essay comes from the early motivational speaker and writer Napoleon Hill.  In one of Hill's lectures, he said this, "The very moment I come into contact with any person who has a bad influence on me, I immediately disassociate myself from that person.  I don't care who it is.  It might even be my mother-in-law or a close relativ...